Please note that the world of Harry Potter belongs to Joanne Rowling, therefore I take no credit in it or the characters I use for this fanfic.
And absolutely no money is being made on this either, it's for the sole purpose of stopping Sirius and Remus from inhabiting my brain.
During the weeks that had passed since the chimney incident, Remus had noticed Sirius disappearing to the second floor on a regular basis, so he came to the conclusion that the house must let Sirius out through the chimney. Christmas was drawing near, and the days had become colder and darker, but Sirius still disappeared for several hours, which sometimes made Remus a little bit nervous.
Surely, the roof must be slippery since ice was already forming outside, and Remus wasn't entirely sure you couldn't die twice.
Since Sirius and Remus had agreed on not getting eachother any gifts for Christmas, which would be hard given their conditions, Remus had been developing a plan. However, it was the night before Christmas Eve when Remus could finally set his plan into action.
For weeks he had been studying spells, altering spells and inventing brand new spells, and all that just to give Sirius a bit of the Christmas magic they used to have at Hogwarts, before the war began.
As soon as Remus was absolutely sure Sirius was asleep, he sneaked out of the room without making a sound, and continued down the staircase towards the kitchen.
His steps echoed in the quiet house, and some of the many paintings on the walls seemed to get a little disturbed. A little, but not enough rouse them from their sleep.
In the kitchen Remus lit his wand with a soft Lumos, before he spoke to the house.
"I, Remus Lupin, resident of this house, wishes to decorate you completely, in order to make this Christmas a good one for our beloved Sirius Luck."
And somehow, the house seemed to agree with to his request, but Remus wasn't actually sure of it.
And so he started decorating the kitchen, carefully at first because he wanted to see how the house would react, but when he didn't end up with a chandelier in his head or a door in his face, he got a little braver.
He made everlasting snow drift around on the floor and gather in the corners, he covered all the windows in frost and he let small red and gold pixies appear on the edges of the shelves and the cupboards. He also put a warming spell on the floor, so that it would be warm, despite the snow.
Next he repeated his snow and frost process in the informal livingroom, but instead of pixies he made candles float around in mid-air and cast a warm glow over the whole room.
He also managed to conjure up a massive Christmas-tree in their grand hall, and some of the branches were hanging over the staircase. He had to climb the stairs up to the third floor to be able to place the crescent moon on the very top of the tree. Then, from his position up there, he made snow fall down and settle over the branches of the tree, and then small pixies and other Christmas ornaments rain down over the tree.
In various rooms he also got it to snow, but he made sure the snow disappeared before it hit the floor, this time he had his measurements right.
He wouldn't have had to decorate the whole house, since he knew Sirius wouldn't see it all. Still, he didn't like the feeling of an unfinished project, so he decided to complete the whole house. He even paid the attic a visit, where he had to dodge ghosts and cheer up a sad painting by lining his frame with fireflies.
His whole adventure through the house took him about three hours, and when he was finished he staggered back to bed where he collapsed and slept heavily until late in the morning.
When the sun was already flowing viciously in through the iced windows, Remus woke to the feel of someone's eyes on him.
"Good morning, Sirius," he grunted into the pillow, since he couldn't gather the energy to raise his head just yet.
There was a faint chuckle coming from the chair placed beside Sirius' side of the bed, it was the kind of chuckle that rang in the air long after it had escaped the lips of the person who chuckled. The kind of chuckle that could only belong to one man.
Suddenly, Remus was wide awake and gazing at an old man with a long, white beard and twinkling eyes behind half-moon spectacles. He was gazing at an old man who was no less than Albus Dumbledore.
"Professor Dumbledore?" Remus managed to croak out.
"Oh call me Albus, Remus dear. Neither of us are either student or Professor anymore, so I feel no need to use those titles. Also, I'm afraid your friend," Dumbledore took a little break, eyes sparkling bright at Remus "... your friend is creating a slight chaos down in the kitchen. You might want to consider joining me downstairs for a cup of tea before he manages to set the whole house on fire," and as if on cue, there was a loud rattle from a floor below them. Remus was quickly up on his feet and started rummaging around for his robe. Albus smiled one of his knowing smiles, while he casually observed his surroundings curiously.
When Remus had found his robe Albus Dumbledore rose to his feet and walked down the stairs alongside of Remus, while watching the snow fall beautifully down the center of the staircase.
"Is this your work? It's brilliant, I must say. Many of these spells are unknown to me," Albus said as he bent down to examine the railing covered in ice.
Remus cleared his throat, as if he was unused to the admiration in the old man's voice, it used to be the other way around, "Yes, Prof.. I mean Albus, it's my work. The reason you might not recognise them is because I've altered some of them and created a few new ones," Remus cleared his throat again.
Suddenly, in the middle of the landing between the Seventh and the Sixth floor, Albus stopped Remus with a hand on his shoulder. Remus turned around so that he was facing Albus, and Albus' grip on Remus' shoulder tightened as he said, "I'm proud of you, Remus. I truly am. You're such a great wizard, always far too bright for your age, and it really hurts me to know that the world never got to see you shine. That all they saw, was the beast living inside of you. You deserved more," there was a momentary shadow in the old man's eyes, but it passed quickly and he started walking again. Remus stood still for a few more seconds, as if to take in what the old man just said, then he continued walking too, still with a shocked expression on his wrinkled face.
They reached the kitchen without further proclamations of feelings, and found out that Dumbledore had indeed been very right about Sirius causing a mess in the kitchen.
There were pots and pans scattered around everywhere, and to enter the kitchen Remus had to step over a dead turkey lying on the floor.
"Sirius, what in Merlin's name are you doing? I thought you weren't the cooking type?" Remus asked, and there was undeniable amusement in his voice.
"Well, someone had to prepare food for our guest, since the other resident of this house seemed to be determined to enjoy his snooze," there was an edge to Sirius' tone which told Remus he wasn't all too pleased with this situation either, so Remus closed the gap between them and hugged Sirius tightly, "It's Christmas Eve, love, I don't think this is the time to be fighting," Remus said lovingly, and then he and Dumbledore helped Sirius clean up and prepare a nice meal.
Once they were seated at the table, Remus thought of something that had been nagging him in the back of his brain ever since he heard the chuckle when he woke up, "Sirius, how did Albus get in here?" he asked, trying not to sound too curious.
"Why, through the chimney of course, though how he got out of his house, I don't know," Sirius winked at Dumbledore.
"Yes, through the chimney, like that muggle Santa Claus. All I'd need now is a hat," Dumbledore winked back at Sirius.
Remus had a feeling the two of them had something going on, but he didn't feel like disrupting the Christmas spirit that had finally settled down in all of them.
"I must say, you did a marvelous job on the decorations," Sirius said, as he looked Remus in the eyes, his voice earnest but loving. Something told Remus that this was exactly what Sirius had needed, a nice Christmas. He hadn't had one since their time at Hogwarts.
"Thankyou dear, if you see any snow melting anywhere or anything that needs improvement, don't hestitate to tell me" Remus said, as he shot Sirius a thankful look.
After dinner was finished and cleaned up, they found themselves seated in the formal livingroom with a nice, warm fire roaring in the fireplace. Dumbledore had found a box of sherbet lemons in the inside pocket of his robe and was unsticking sherbet lemons from eachother and offering them to a completely stuffed Remus, who kindly refused.
Sirius was snoozing lightly on one of the bigger sofas with his hand hanging down the side of the sofa, so he certainly wasn't going to accept any sherbet lemons. That left all the sherbet lemons to Dumbledore, who didn't look as if he minded at all.
Dumbledore and Remus sat and talked for a couple of hours, and Sirius woke up somewhere after the second hour and joined their conversation, but soon found it too dull and conjured marshmallows which he roasted on the fire instead.
Remus looked at him disbelievingly, as if wondering how the man could get any more food down.
After a few more hours, Dumbledore announced that he'd better be off, since he had to celebrate Christmas Day at home with his family, and that it was quite a long walk over slippery rooftops, so he bid them goodbye and they followed him to the dining room and watched him climb up the chimney, strangely graceful for his old age.
After Dumbledore had disappeared, Sirius asked Remus to sit down on the sofa. Then he let his gaze drift over the various magical elements in the room and said in a stern manner, "I thought we agreed we wouldn't get any presents this year? You do realize what kind of position this puts me in, don't you? I have to figure something out until tomorrow.." but then he smiled and continued, "though I must thank you, this has been a very wonderful start to the holidays and.. and it feels like I've gotten back a bit of the magic I lost after Azkaban," and Remus understood what he wanted to say. That since James had died, no holiday had ever been the same again. Not without James apparating into their living quarters early in the morning, completely unannounced and shouting "Get up it's" and then the name of whatever holiday it happened to be that morning. Sirius would growl into the pillow and throw it at him, and Remus would try to hide under his cover for a while longer.
James always did this, even after he and Lily moved together, since he thought his friends were the second most important thing in the world. His wife and child came in first.
After having James come barging in every Christmas for many years, it had felt very strange for Remus that first Christmas after James and Lily had died and Sirius had ended up in Azkaban. He'd felt empty without James' shouting and Sirius' pillow-throwing.
This Christmas, he had Sirius, but no James. But it was better than nothing, Remus thought as he lay his head on his pillow that evening, and then he sighed happily as he felt Sirius' arm snake around his waist, and the warmth of Sirius' body close to his lulled him to sleep.
Yes, it was very much better than nothing.
Remus woke up fairly early on Christmas Day, but as usual Sirius wasn't in bed anymore. Remus lay awake in bed for a while, since he didn't think it was worth getting up this early, and that's when he caught the smell of burnt milk.
He estimated that Sirius couldn't have done any real damage with a bit of milk, so he stayed in bed. Soon he felt a tingle in the air, which indicated that a smell-clearing spell had been used.
Five minutes later though, Remus could again feel the smell of burnt milk, and started to wonder what exactly Sirius was trying to do in the kitchen.
He decided he didn't want to see Sirius as upset as yesterday, so he padded down to the kitchen and found Sirius in the process of making them breakfast, which he loaded into two baskets. The smell of burnt milk originated from a pot simmering at the fire, and Remus tilted the lid of the pot to find hot chocolate simmering in it.
He stared at Sirius, then sighed, and decided to do what he could about the hot chocolate. So he brewed it correctly and poured it into a jug that Sirius had placed near the fire.
While Remus had been correcting Sirius' errors, Sirius had finished breakfast and come over to Remus for a good-morning-kiss. He then recommended Remus to go and dress warmly, that they were going to eat breakfast outside.
"Oh, and Merry Christmas love," Sirius winked before he shooed Remus upstairs to get dressed.
Fifteen minutes later a slightly confused Remus found himself waiting at the chimney in the dining room, as instructed, and couldn't help but mutter "Breakfast on the roof? Has he gone completely nutters?" when he heard Sirius saying "I'm afraid so, now could you please take one of these baskets, I'm afraid they're rather heavy."
"What, so you think a weak werewolf should carry them instead, surely a healthy looking man like yourself can manage them both," Remus replied sarcastically and then took one of the baskets out of Sirius' hand, since it would have been impossible for Sirius to climb otherwise.
Remus found the climb quite unpleasant, since there was still a lot of soot left on the inside of the chimney, and he made a mental note to get that cleaned up in case Sirius wanted to drag him up here any more times. The sight that greeted him as he peeked his head out of the chimney made it all worth it though, because the sun was just rising over the rooftops on the opposite side of the street, and Remus thought he could see to the edge of the earth from here. Getting out of the chimney was a bit problematic though, because Remus' knees had started getting a bit worse and he was also afraid of falling down.
When Sirius noticed the man above him was hestitating about getting out, he shouted "There are safety barriers and an invisible platform on the roof. You won't fall, love, I promise," and then he saw Remus disappear out over the ledge of the chimney. He was quick to follow and as he got out he saw Remus standing in mid-air, laying out a blanket for them to sit on and grabbing another one to curl up in.
Sirius started taking the food out of the baskets and laying them out onto the blanket, and then sat down and patted the area next to him, indicating that he wanted Remus to sit down, and as he did, Sirius swooped the blanket around them. Remus curled up close to Sirius and hummed contently as he sipped on the hot chocolate Sirius had poured up for him in his mug.
Just as Remus was about to take a bite of a sandwich, he saw a pixie flying wobbly out of the chimney while giggling hysterically. "Sirius dear, did you leave the butterbeer out?" he asked amazed. Sirius took a look at the pixie and started to grin widely, "I might have, yes.. However, those bloody pixies must have gotten the cork out themselves."
Then both Sirius and Remus started to giggle, as another pixie appeared through the chimney, this one with a bad case of hiccups that sent a small cloud of soot out at them every now and then.
As they sat there and watched the sun rise, Remus couldn't help taking a look at the spells that held them up and safe, and he couldn't help but admire Sirius for his work. These were very complicated spells, and when he asked Sirius about them, he only got "Thought they'd be useful" as an answer. He didn't give it much of a thought after that, but simply enjoyed the food and the chilly air with his soulmate, and when it was time to go down again, he thanked him for what he had done. For giving him the perfect start to a perfect Christmas day.
And then he went down to the kitchen to put the final touches to their Christmas dinner, he felt like Sirius had done more than enough cooking lately.